Because I'm a musician doing retro-sequencing rather than trying to do retro-gaming like most people I see in forums, I think what I'm wanting to accomplish may be the exact opposite of what every howto and article on this subject is trying to accomplish. Namely, instead of trying to get some kind of on-card wavetable or FM synth "emulation" of MIDI going, I'm trying to get DOS applications to use my real physical port and send real MIDI data in and out. I thought that should be easy, but maybe not.

I'm using an Ensoniq ES1370 card, because it lets me have DOS, Windows 3.1, Windows XP, and Linux support all on the same machine with the same card. In every other OS but DOS, the card is behaving beautifully -- even Windows 3.1 -- but with DOS applications, attempts to talk to MIDI seem to be getting directed to a Soundscape emulation that assumes I want to hear noises from the card itself. This seems to be happening in hardware before any program or setting has a chance to say no.

If I turn off emulation in the card's settings, I lose DOS driver support completely, and applications then say I have no sound card.

Is there any way around this, or have I once again run into a dead end with my choice of card? I tried the 1371, but with that card, I had the opposite problem: Using the turkeys4me driver I couldn't get MIDI working in Windows 3.1, only audio. Ensoniq's own driver couldn't find my 1371, but does not work with the 1370 I've switched to.

If I do need to get another card, should I go with an Audigy? I've heard it has pretty broad OS support, but it's important that I be able to talk to the physical MIDI port in all four OS's. (The Linux part will be easy with just about any card, so don't worry about that one.)

Or is there a way to get these DOS and Windows 3.1 (physical MIDI available) on the 1371 that I missed when I was trying with it before?